


Perdue Sans Retour (the Saying it in French remix)

by misura



Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-23
Updated: 2010-05-23
Packaged: 2017-10-09 16:21:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate has always been better at writing between the lines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perdue Sans Retour (the Saying it in French remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asimaiyat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asimaiyat/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Letter](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/908) by asimaiyat. 



> This is not my assignment - I just saw this one on the pinch hit ML, got bunnied and didn't get the assignment. Oh well.
> 
> All song quotes are copyrighted to Jo-Lemaire, whose CDs I may or may not have been listening to while writing.

_Je ne sais plus tres bien  
comment commencait cette histoire_  
(I'm not sure anymore how this story began)  
_(Jardin des delices - Garden of delights)_

 

"We're out of milk," Neal says, and he's beaming like it's the greatest thing that's ever happened to him. (He looks kind of cute and kind of innocent and Kate thinks she'd be having him on the breakfast table if it hadn't been for some small detail that keeps getting in the way at moments like these.)

"No, we're not. I got some yesterday." Mozzie's fully aware of her frustration, of course. She hasn't yet quite worked out if it amuses him or if it makes him uncomfortable, to be confronted with the fact that she and Neal would be having a lot more sex if it hadn't been for him.

Possibly, it doesn't really matter. "Oh, well done." Kate leans over and kisses him on the cheek, lightly, her eyes on Neal. "And I didn't even need to write you a note."

Neal stops looking smug. Mozzie smiles, and he's definitely amused now, which is good and about the effect Kate was going for. "She wrote you a note?" Mozzie asks Neal and then, before Neal can reply, turning to Kate: "You wrote him a note?"

"An encrypted note," Neal says, sounding defensive.

Mozzie looks at Kate with something she'd like to believe is appreciation. "You wrote him an encrypted note and it took him a whole day to decipher it?"

"One of the perks that come with having a girlfriend," Kate says. She doesn't think Mozzie is really interested in getting a girlfriend - or a boyfriend, for that matter. Neal used to be enough for him, and now he's got her, too.

It's not about sleeping together. She likes that part - and Neal is passionate and creative and kind of sweet - but with people like her and Neal and Mozzie, it's mostly about trust. They're living together; each of them is trusting the other two not to treat them as a mark, as someone whose trust should be won only to be taken advantage of.

"One of the _many_ perks." Neal smiles at her winningly. Clearly, he wants her to give him the same treatment she's given Mozzie a few minutes ago.

"You didn't get any milk," she reminds him. "No kiss for you, mister."

"I could kiss you," Mozzie offers.

Kate laughs and bares her teeth at him. "Hands off my man, Moz."

"She scares me sometimes," Neal tells Mozzie, tone solemn, eyes wicked.

"You scare me all the time," Mozzie says. "Don't worry about it. I know her kind. She'll find someone else, move on, drop you like a hot potato. Break your heart."

"Oops," Kate says. "You're on to me, huh?"

(_I love you,_ her smile tells Neal. _I love you._ and he smiles right back at her, another _I love you_ while Mozzie watches them both and shakes his head, muttering about getting a notepad to put on the fridge, to keep track of the groceries they need to buy.)

 

_Il y a toujours  
Quelqu'un qui t'aime_  
(There is always someone who loves you)  
_(Serenade)_

It's a game and a joke, really - the game of notes left in coatpockets and handbags and wallets, all the hidden places they know the other hasn't been near. Kate starts it, because every time Neal looks at her, his eyes tell her that he thinks she is beautiful.

There is nothing wrong with being thought beautiful by an attractive, wealthy man, naturally. It's not quite what she looks for in a lover, though, not in one she wants to work with, live with.

Neal dates beautiful women all the time. He'll make her feel like she's special, of course; he'll whisper it in her ear when they make love (and you don't make love to marks, not generally, because if you're good enough, you never need to let things get that far, and Neal is so very good that Kate would bet he's never even undone the top button of his shirt to get to a mark) but that doesn't mean she can trust him, or that _he_ trusts _her_.

She wants Neal to trust her.

"I love you," he tells her, barely a week after the first time they've met - what he means is _'last night was great, but I need to go now'_.

She smiles back at him and says: "I love you, too," meaning _'just you wait, Neal Caffrey'_.

And maybe love doesn't work that way, maybe it really is something some people can feel the first time they've met someone (she introduced herself as Kathy Moore, an art student, and he informed her he was Martin Greenwahl, representing the New York Museum of Modern Arts) and if that's true, then yes, she is in love and all that remains is to make sure Neal feels the same. The work of a lifetime.

(When he kisses her goodbye, she slips a note in his wallet with a time later that evening and the address of a nice little restaurant, encrypted in such a way that it should make him think of her for at least an hour, if he bothers with it at all. She could have done it earlier, when he was asleep, but that would have been too easy, and he might have checked his wallet before he left; she does it this way because she can and because she wants to. And when he looks at her over dinner that evening, he no longer looks at her as if she's beautiful; he looks at her as if she's someone he wants to get to know.)

 

_Ce desir qui me devore  
qui me fait perdre la tete  
revient encore et encore_  
(This desire that devours me keeps coming back again and again)  
_(Babylone - Babylon)_

"You had to run," Neal says, looking entirely too pleased for someone in his position.

"And I was going to see you soon." Maybe he's been busy; she doesn't think the note was that hard to decipher, although she knows she may have given in to the temptation to overestimate Neal, to think he really is that smart, suave, smooth guy she sort of knows he isn't (although it sometimes seems like the better she gets to know him, the harder it is to remember that nobody is perfect).

Mozzie is the one who keeps her grounded. "This was two days ago, right?"

"Hey!" Neal looks a little offended. If Kate had said it, he'd be looking amused and grin at her, maybe try for a kiss. (Neal likes to kiss, to touch, to use his hands and _feel_.)

"It's ineffective, is all I'm saying." It's not an apology, really. It might be criticism - on her, for having left the note, on Neal, for having spent so much time on deciphering it.

"That depends on the intended effect, surely," Kate says - giving away too much, perhaps. Neal makes it easy to overestimate his abilities; with Mozzie, it's the opposite. She thinks he understands her better than Neal does, sometimes, especially her fears, the things she only thinks about when Neal isn't around, the things that make her leave those notes, never saying openly what she means.

Mozzie shrugs, possibly conceding the point, possibly dismissing it. "I've got to walk - I'll see the two of you later this evening."

"I guess that works, too," Neal says, smile turning into a grin as he looks at her.

"Less fun though, isn't it?" Kate leans in to let him kiss her, as she knows he wants to.

 

_Je sais que tes paroles  
ne sont que des mesonges_  
(I know your words are nothing but lies)  
_(Pour qui, pour quoi - For who, for what)_

Kate tries to think of ways to slip notes to Neal in prison, to let him know nothing has changed, not really, that she'll wait for him. She tries not to remember.

The apartment is full of things that remind her of Neal. She half-expects Mozzie to take some of them with him when he leaves - apologizing in a hand-written, unsigned note she burns after she's read it and memorized the contact information - but he leaves it all behind, for her.

It's like the only secret message he's ever left her, and what it says is that he trusts her.

Mozzie is a miserable excuse for a liar, really. She takes her revenge by not telling Neal he's left, feeling petty as she watches Neal's face fall when she tells him that no, Mozzie hasn't sent any kind of message. (Neal's not surprised Mozzie hasn't come to see him in person. Kate can tell he's surprised that _she_ has, which is kind of ridiculous - what else is she supposed to do?)

"I'm all right," she tells him. "I'm all right, Neal. Are you all right, too?" _'I miss you. I still love you. Do you love me, too?'_

"Yes," Neal says. "I'm fine. Really. Don't worry about me," and what she hears is _'Maybe. I don't know.'_

 

_Jamais tu ne vivras  
comme un oiseau en cage_  
(Never will you live like a bird in a cage)  
_(Aventure - Adventure)_

Fowler hasn't heard even half of what he's made her tell him about Neal, which makes him an idiot, as far as Kate is concerned. It's a good thing for Neal, most likely, but she thinks it might not be such a good thing for _her_. Fowler may be an idiot, but he's still got power.

She doesn't really believe getting on the plane is any kind of good idea.

She doesn't really believe she's got any other options right now - not ones that will get Neal back to her, anyway, and if she'd been willing to give up Neal, this whole thing would have been so much easier, over and done with long ago.

There's no particular reason for her to reach into the pocket of her coat. It's a mere coincidence that her fingers feel some small, folded piece of paper that's been buried there.

Nobody is watching her as she draws it out. (She's not watching as Neal turns around again, on the airstrip, to talk to the man who's told her to stay away from Neal - another man with power over her, although Peter Burke is no kind of idiot, more's the pity.)

_'Get out if you can.'_

 

_Silencieusement  
quelqu'un veni a pas de velours  
dechire le voile de notre amour_  
(Silently someone has come and torn the veils of our love)  
_(Sans retour - No return)_

"I'm not sure whether to thank you for having saved my life or to yell at you for leaving it to chance like that," Kate says. Neal has sat down on a bench, seemingly lost in thought.

Mozzie looks like he's not quite sure if he's annoyed or embarrassed. "I didn't leave it to chance. I thought Neal would get on the plane." _'I thought Neal would be the one to find the note.'_

The expression on Neal's face is almost peaceful. Kate thinks he's faking it, that on the inside, Neal isn't anywhere near as calm and at peace as he looks but she isn't sure. Four years is a long time to keep on trusting someone, but she thinks it might just be long enough to forget, to lock away what's come before as a memory and move on.

"Do you think I should talk to him?"

"Do _you_ think you should talk to him?" Mozzie's expression wants her to believe it's all the same to him. An airplane passes overhead, too far away for the noise to be audible over the sounds of the park, the people. "Right now, he probably thinks you're dead."

"It doesn't seem to bother him much."

Mozzie scowls. "What did you expect him to do: tear at his hair and lie weeping on your grave?" He follows her gaze to where Neal still sits, oblivious. "You don't even _have_ a grave."

Kate thinks she's glad of that. "It just feels like he's moved on." When Neal was in prison, she told herself it was because he was in prison. When Neal was wearing the FBI's anklet, she told herself it was because of Agent Peter Burke.

"Then maybe you should make up your mind about catching up with him."

Kate never expected Mozzie to choose for her, really. Mozzie creates chances, openings - distractions, when they are needed. He won't tell Neal she's still alive, unless Neal asks. "Yes, I guess I should."

Mozzie doesn't get up when she rises, and she doesn't look back when she starts walking - she already knows he'll be gone, vanished without a trace as if he's never been there.


End file.
